The most haunting of heroines

'Do you think that they will persuade the Duke of York to beg pardon?' I ask him as he is saddling his horse in the stable yard. 'And if he confesses and obeys the king will you be able to come straight home?'

'He did so before,' my husband says steadily. 'And the king - sick or well - is still the king. The queen and the duke believe that they defeat him then they will be proved right. I have to keep Calais for England and for my own honour, and then I will come home. I love you, my wife. I will be home soon.'

At first the plan goes beautifully. Richard returns to Calais, pays the soldiers, and tells the garrison the king is in his power again, advised by the Duke of Somerset, and the House of Lancaster is in the ascendancy. The Privy Council turn against the man they called on as their saviour and agree to meet without the Duke of York. They choose the safe haven of Leicester for this meeting, the heartland of the queen's influence, her favourite county, and the traditional base for the House of Lancaster. Their choosing Leicester makes them feel safe; but it tells me, and anyone else who cares to consider, that they are afraid of what the citizens will think in London, of what they will say in the villages of Sussex, of what they will do in Jack Cade's home of Kent.

It is hard to get everyone to act: the lords and the gentry have to be summoned, the plan has to be explained, so that everyone understands the Duke of York is to be ill paid for loyal service to the country, his achievements traduced, and he and his allies are to be excluded from the council... 

The king is so slow to leave for Leicester that he comes to bid farewell to the queen, Edmund Beaufort on his right, Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, on his left, on the very day that he had said he would arrive in Leicester. His nobility behind them dressed as if riding out for pleasure. I look from one familiar face to another. There is not a man here who is not either kin to the House of Lancaster, or paid by the House of Lancaster. This is no longer the court of England, drawing on the support of many families, of many houses, this is the court of the House of Lancaster, and anyone who is not part of it is an outsider. And anyone who is an outsider is an enemy. The king bows low to Margaret and she formally wishes him a safe journey and prosperous return.

'I am sure it will be easily done and peacefully concluded,' he says vaguely. 'My cousin, the Duke of York, cannot be allowed to defy my authority, my authority, you know. I have told the Yorkist lords that they are to disband their armies. They can keep two hundred men each. Two hundred should be enough, shouldn't it?' 

He looks at the Duke of Somerset. 'Two hundred is fair, isn't it?'

'More than fair,' replies Edmund, who has about five hundred men in livery, and another thousand tenants that he can call up at a moment's notice.

'So I shall bid you farewell, and see you at Windsor when this work is done,' the king says. He smiles at Beaufort and the Duke of Buckingham. 'My good kinsmen will take care of me, I know. You can be sure that they will be at my side.'

We go down to the great doorway to wave as they ride by. The king's standard goes in front, then the royal guard, and the king comes next. He is wearing riding clothes for the journey, he looks thin and pale compared to the two most favoured dukes on either side of him. As they go by, the Duke of Somerset pulls off his hat to Margaret, and holds it to his heart. 

Hidden by her veil, she puts her fingers to her lips. The lesser noblemen, then the gentry, then the men at arms follow. There must be about two thousand men riding out with the king and they rumble past us, the great war horses with their mighty hooves, the smaller horses carrying goods and gear, and then the booted tramp of the foot soldiers who march in disciplined ranks, and the stragglers who follow.

The queen is restless at the Palace of Placentia, though the household is confident and busy, waiting for news of the king's success with his hand-picked council. The gardens that run down to the river are beautiful with the white and pale pink of dancing cherry blossom, and when we walk to the river in a wind the petals whirl about us like snow and make the little prince laugh, and he chases after them, his nursemaid bowed over him as he wobbles on his fat little legs. In the fields at the riverside the late daffodils are still are burnished white with flowers, the blackthorn thickly blooming riverside the willows rustle their boughs together and lean over the clear water, green water below reflecting the green leaves above.